Counterfeiting is a problem for content providers. In the past, especially when using analog devices, counterfeits were typically inferior in quality to an authentic, or genuine, product. However, due in part to the advent of digital storage, counterfeits are now equal to, or nearly equal to, the authentic, or original product in quality. Further compounding the problem for content providers is that optical media, upon which most digital content is delivered, is now relatively easy and inexpensive to duplicate. Additionally, many illicit counterfeiting operations generate counterfeited products that are increasingly difficult to distinguish from the genuine products.
As part of their anti-counterfeiting efforts, content providers have focused considerable effort at identifying counterfeited products. Some of these efforts include adding identification labels (that are difficult and costly to duplicate) to the packaging and, more recently, creating holograms on the reflective coating applied to the optical media. The ability to identify counterfeits is important to content providers as a large amount of counterfeits come through customs from areas of the world where counterfeiting is inexpensive, and perhaps even encouraged. Thus, if the content providers can identify the counterfeits as they pass through customs, such counterfeits can be confiscated and/or destroyed. As an added benefit to the identification efforts, the cost of creating counterfeits is increased. Theoretically, if the overall cost to counterfeit a genuine article was raised to a level where there was no profit in selling a counterfeit, no counterfeits would be produced.
Many areas of an optical disk are generally unused. For example, the hub area of an optical disk, i.e., the interior area of an optical disk surrounding the optical disk's center hole, is almost universally unused. With the exception of some printed artwork in this area, it is generally an area that is not utilized. No optically stored data is located within the hub area. Part of the reason that this area is unused is that this is the area that an optical disk drive uses to secure and rotate the disk while reading and/or writing.
What is needed is an optical disk that can be distinguished from counterfeited products, that should be inefficient to counterfeit, and that utilizes the hub area of the optical disk. The present invention addresses these and other issues not found in the prior art.